MPs will be punished by voters if they force new housing on the countryside

There are many examples where residents don't want more housing

SIR – Greg Clark, the planning minister, cannot think of a single example of a place where the residents don't want any more housing (Letters, August 29). Here's one.

The village of Whalley, in the rural Ribble Valley, is under attack from developers who want to build some 1,000 houses around the village, all on greenfield sites. Residents are opposed to such development. This opposition is replicated in other parts of the valley and indeed in hundreds of areas in the country.

It is obvious that these measures are designed to kick-start the economy. The economy will eventually begin to grow without these measures, but once the countryside is concreted over it will never come back. People are right to insist that we preserve it for our future.

The Localism Bill has been exposed as a sham which encourages "local" decisions on planning only if they are decisions in favour of more development. The Ribble Valley is a safe Tory seat, but I would remind Mr Clark that the valley has punished previous Tory administrations by voting its MP out of office when it was faced with something which it felt to be unreasonable and against its best interests.

Nick Walker Whalley, Lancashire

SIR – Developers might be able to find favour with villages they seek to enlarge by building a shop as part of the project and giving the freehold to the village.

One reason a lot of villages have lost their shops is that the freehold value of the premises is so great that it is impossible for anyone to make enough out of running the business both to service the mortgage and make a living.

If the parish council owned the shop they would then be able to set the rent at a level designed to attract an energetic entrepreneur who could provide a service to the local community while making a career for themselves.

Tim Weeks Chichester, West Sussex

SIR – Rebecca Fowler fears "characterless housing" around her Suffolk home (Features, August 29). She is right to do so, but an easy way to avoid this is for communities to insist that a small proportion of any new development is thatched.

Thatch is the only truly sustainable building material and its use for new buildings would help create housing that reflects the traditions of the countryside, as well as preserving an indigenous, threatened material.

Catherine Lewis The Thatching Information Service Ware, Hertfordshire

SIR – The most depressing part of the interview with Mr Clark was his CV. Another career politician who has never worked in the real world of commerce, where profit ensures economic survival.

No wonder his views are out of touch.

John Fairbanks Wadebridge, Cornwall

Third World nursing

SIR – Cristina Odone’s description (Comment, August 29) of her mother’s experience on an NHS ward struck a chord. A few years ago my husband had a knee operation. The surgery was brilliant; the nursing care that followed would have disgraced hospitals in the poorest areas of the Third World.

I arrived the morning after his operation to find him on a saline drip, a morphine drip, and with a drain in his knee. In spite of this, his pleas for a urine bottle had gone unheeded and he was lying in a urine-soaked bed in great distress. When we appealed to a young doctor for help he reacted with self-righteous aggression, threatening to discharge my husband immediately “if this was our attitude”.

There was no shortage of nurses on this ward, but they seemed to think it beneath their dignity to leave their cups of tea and comfortable seats to attend to these demanding, insanitary strangers whose suffering obviously meant not a thing to them. Those of us who have contributed to society all our lives deserve better.

The experience was such a nightmare that when my husband had a serious fall recently, he refused even to be taken to accident and emergency at this hospital.

Jean M. Stephenson Wrecclesham, Surrey

SIR – That nurses now wear “do nor disturb” tabards when issuing medication strikes me as eminently sensible (report, August 29). Owing to a long-term condition and recent heart surgery my wife takes 19 tablets a day, at four different times. One prescription is reviewed every couple of weeks, and the others may be changed after irregular consultations.

The fact that some tablets are of similar size and colour – and that the pharmacy cannot always supply a capsule to match the doses – adds to my problems. Despite a career which depended on numeracy I devote the greater part of an hour on Sunday to this task.

How much harder it must be for nurses with multiple patients and noisy wards.

John A. Roll Pickering Epsom, Surrey

SIR – I am a retired nurse. Today, the title “Nurse” no longer applies; it should perhaps be replaced with “Technician”.

Gillian Drew Aspley Guise, Bedfordshire

Discriminating Scots

SIR – When my three Scottish sons, who happened to be living in England after my Scottish employer posted me to England, attended Scottish universities a few years ago, they too had to pay additional fees because they lived in England.

I raised this with my MP and received the explanation you gave (report, August 29), in that within Britain we are allowed to discriminate against each other, whereas this is not permitted within the EU.

What is not often appreciated is that this phenomenon is a direct result of the devolution negotiations between the ruling Labour party and the SNP. The effect was for the SNP to know it had one over the English, while Labour tried to feather-bed its Scottish support to keep it in power.

My sons have returned to Scotland to live and work, but they are saddled with debt compared to their fellow countrymen.

Harry L. Barker Tarporley, Cheshire

A peaceful wind

SIR – Naming this latest hurricane “Irene” is a misnomer”. Irene is the Greek for peace.

Whoever heard of a peaceful hurricane?

I.E. Quinn Lee-on-the Solent, Hampshire

Let us work long hours

SIR – It was Labour who signed Britain up to the job-killing Agency Workers Directive (“New EU job rights 'will derail British recovery’”, report, August 26). The intention was to horse trade one damaging piece of legislation with another. By signing us up to the AWD, which gives agency workers the same rights as full-time employees, costing companies nearly £2 billion a year, we were supposed to secure an opt-out from the Working Time Directive’s 48-hour working week.

Labour MEPs happily supported their government’s climb-down on agency workers. However, they also pushed to end Britain’s working time opt-out. The European Commission now seems set to reopen these discussions, and our opt-out could come under renewed pressure.

With British businesses crying out for less red tape and a more competitive workforce, Brussels must not tell them to stop working. If Labour MEPs want to represent workers, they will not challenge our working time opt-out, and make it harder for people to work the hours needed to encourage economic growth.

Julie Girling MEP (Con) Brussels

SIR – I would cut off my right hand for 0.5 per cent growth. My company’s sales of IT to the Government are 30 per cent down on last year’s reduced figure.

My neighbour sells second-hand white goods. His sales are down 20 per cent. We’ve both been in business more than 20 years. To survive, we’re not taking salary or contributing to pensions.

What will become of us?

Tim Roberts Southampton

Bats in the attic

SIR – I was alarmed by Christopher Howse’s article (Sacred Mysteries, August 27) on St Hilda, the 1,000-year-old church in Ryedale, North Yorkshire, which will have to be closed due to the damage from urine and droppings from roosting bats. I cannot understand the logic of authorities who can have this sort of power.

In the late Seventies, we were plagued by bats in our attic, scraping and scratching around above our bed all night. We found their exit hole and at dusk counted out over 80. The following night, after they had left, my husband, at great risk to himself, climbed up and blocked up the hole.

The next day he remarked to our neighbour: “We’ve got rid of our bats.” “I know,” he replied. “We’ve got them”.

Sonia Wakely Pangbourne, Berkshire

The last thing we need is a new layer of local tax

SIR – The Liberal Democrats obviously have too much time on their hands. Increased taxes based on the wealth of suburbs (report, August 29)? Imagine the army of valuers needed across the country.

We have a perfectly good way of taxing the better off – it’s called income tax. It’s easy to increase if necessary and a proportion could be paid to councils based on population numbers. We already have the systems and infrastructure to do this. The last thing we need is another layer of administration and bureaucracy.

Why not just cut local and government expenditure on the expensive projects and inflated salaries to which they seem addicted? The Government does not know best how to spend our money.

Mark Barry-Jackson Reigate, Surrey

SIR – Would it not be simpler if the Lib Dems issued a list of the things that they do not plan to tax?